


Goddamn Engineers

by Manuscriptor



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accurate science, Gen, and shaming of Engineers, briefly and in disdain, is mentioned, look they are cool and smart but they should not be allowed to round pi to three
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-14 17:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18953113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manuscriptor/pseuds/Manuscriptor
Summary: Peter is horrified to discover the dark side of being an engineer and looks to Bruce for guidanceBruce is surprised but happy to offer an explanation as to why Tony is acting so unscientific





	Goddamn Engineers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lucky_as_lucky_can_be](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucky_as_lucky_can_be/gifts).



 “Dr. Banner, you have to hear what Mr. Stark is talking about!”

Bruce looked up from his computer screens, taking a moment to wipe his eyes. He was getting a headache from staring at the floating graphs and numbers and was just beginning to question why Tony thought it was ‘cool’ or ‘futuristic’ to have the constant strain on the eyes. In all honesty, he was grateful for the interruption, especially if it was Peter Parker.

“I told you, you can call me Bruce,” he told the ceiling, watching the half-spider half-caffeinated college student crawl in through the doorway. “There’s no need to be so formal.”

“Dude, my high school science teachers would make us watch your videos if they didn’t feel like teaching. I can’t just call Mr. Nye by his first name. That’d be weird.”

Peter flipped upside down and descended on a string of web, feet braced for balance but with all the skill and grace that came with being a spider, he arrived on the floor all in one piece and without injury. He flipped upright and bounced on his feet, still too full of energy to stand still.

“So I can’t call you Bruce,” Peter concluded. “Because I can’t call Mr. Nye ‘Bill’.”

“You just called him Bill twice,” Bruce said, grabbing his mug of coffee, disappointed to find it empty. He set it aside, wondering if Peter would be willing to take this conversation to a coffee shop or someplace similar.

Peter was dressed down, as was usual for them having a day off. Bruce himself was dressed in a pale yellow dress shirt, rolling up his sleeves due to the heat. He had even abandoned his lab coat in favor of the lighter clothing. Peter, in a similar fashion, was wearing cargo shorts and a t-shirt, his web-gloves pulled onto his hands which allowed him to swing like his namesake. He was picking at one with what Bruce now knew was a nervous tic.

“I was in the lab with Mr. Stark,” Peter said, bouldering on through the conversation as if Bruce hadn’t spoken. “We were working on different settings for my web shooters—you know, extra sticky, extra strong, extra whatever. It’s not often he lets me touch the equipment.”

Bruce nodded because he understood that. Tony was highly protective of his lab equipment and workspace. Even with seven PhDs, Bruce got the door slammed in his face more often than not. For some reason, Tony seemed to think the only thing he studied was gamma rays, and while Bruce was extremely knowledgeable on that particular subject, he had dozens of other papers published in multiple fields. Tony had _cited_ his work off-handedly in a conversation one time for fuck’s sake, but Bruce still wasn’t allowed in the lab. Friday always told him no.

Bruce leaned forward in his seat as Peter continued, just as caffeinated and eager as ever.

“We were working with compounds too! This is stuff that I’m learning about in my internship, which, I mean, Mr. Stark _did_ get me the internship but I was excited to be _using_ the stuff that I was learning!”

Bruce nodded because he understood this too.

Peter was now fully caught up in his story, gesturing wildly with his arms and waving his hands as he paced back and forth, almost wearing a hole in the floor. He had probably already forgotten who he was talking too with the way he had dropped the little formal attitude he had had.

“We were calculating the number of molecules and the volume of the containers, trying maximize the yield and product,” Peter went on. “Because we need to fit as many into a canister as possible, right. So we’re throwing numbers around, I feel like an actual scientist for once, and Mr. Stark says that the container was three units by whatever whatever!”

Bruce wasn’t sure if he was following the explanation. Peter had the bad habit of leaving out important information when explaining things, especially when he was stressed or excited. Bruce was figuring now was one of those times.

“Not just three,” Peter quickly corrected, like he had noticed Bruce’s look of confusion. “Three by other numbers by other numbers. _You know_! We were finding the volume of the canister and how much pressure it could withstand. Mr. Stark was figuring if we could fit the exact same amount of molecules as the volume was without the container exploding, that would be the ideal state.”

“Oh,” Bruce said because now things were making a bit more sense. He waited for Peter to continue because he was sure that the story wasn’t over quite yet.

It wasn’t.

“I was running my own calculations too,” Peter said, now looking to Bruce excitedly. “I had my graph paper, I had my calculator, I had my laptop open with a full Excel sheet filled out. I was _rocking_. I felt like a _scientist_.”

Bruce couldn’t help but smile at that, wanting to laugh at the kid’s enthusiasm but not wanting to ruin his attitude. It wouldn’t be a hurtful laugh. It was more like Bruce could remember himself at Peter’s age, just getting into science for himself and eagerly reading any sort of scientific paper or article that he could get his hands on. He had been just as enthusiastic and eager and wild as Peter was, maybe even less. Peter’s energy was hard to match.

“But here’s the thing,” Peter said, continuing on and not really noticing the way Bruce’s mind drifted. “I came up with my own answer to the volume question and it was _pi_ by whatever numbers by whatever numbers.”

Bruce frowned. “What do you mean?”

Peter was back to gesturing wildly now, even more emotionally invested in the story that ever.

“Pi versus three, Dr. Banner! Mr. Stark said that our answers were basically the same and that either would work in the equation, but I don’t get it. Mr. Stark isn’t stupid, is he? He’s got all his inventions and he does all the science behind the Avengers.”

Peter paused and finally pointed at Bruce, looking him boldly in the eye, once again forgetting the formal-ness that he had clung to at the beginning of the conversation.

“Not all the science,” he corrected. “You do tons. So does Shuri. In fact, the labs at Wakanda are huge. They probably do _amazing_ science.” Peter stilled and thought for a moment, hands frozen where they had been mid gesture. He then dropped his hands to his sides. “Okay, maybe Tony doesn’t do that much science.”

“Nice of you to notice,” Bruce said, more to himself than anyone.

“But is it science?!” Peter exclaimed, back to gesturing wildly a moment later. “Three, Dr. Banner, _three_!! Three is _not_ the same as pi, and Mr. Stark was convinced that either of our answers would work.”

Oh.

_Oh_!

So that was the punchline to this entire story. That was what Peter was all up in a rage over, the poor guy confused and trying to understand but not. If only he had started with that, then Bruce could’ve helped him right away instead of letting him turn so many circles he had to be dizzy.

“Tony does that all the time,” Bruce said, turning back to his desk and swiping away his screens so he could have a blank workspace.

“All the time?!” Peter exclaimed. He looked like he was going to jump onto the table and rip his hair out. “ _All the time_ , Dr. Banner, that can’t be allowed.”

Bruce was now really in need of some coffee and he regretted that though there were several mugs on desk, all of them seemed to be empty. Peter didn’t seem to pick up on the hint either and seemed very intent on staying where he was. At least, vaguely in place. Peter was back to pacing.

“Yeah,” Bruce said. “I mean, I knew several people like Tony in graduate school.”

Peter all but flung himself on Bruce’s now-empty desk, leaning all the way across it with his chin propped in his hands.

“People like Mr. Stark?” he asked. “What do you mean?”

Now Bruce did laugh just at the memory of the roommates he had taken through graduate school. While everyone in the small apartment had been STEM and very much evident of that, everyone with their own tics and oddities and strange habits, not everyone had had the same . . . attention to detail for different aspects of their education.

Engineers were notorious for that.

Bruce had lost track of the number of engineers he had met that thought three was just as good as pi or equivalent to it. It was absurd but provided a good laugh for when the more sophisticated STEM majors gathered for drinks Friday night and were running low on conversation topics.

“Tony’s an engineer,” Bruce explained to Peter. “They like to round like that. It’s common.”

“Common?!” Peter all but exploded. “We’re calculating _cylindrical_ volume!! You can’t just _round_ pi when you’re working with circles and cylinders! That’s not how math works!”

“That’s how math works for engineers,” Bruce explained. He had found a cup with coffee in it, but he wasn’t sure how old it was. It didn’t smell bad so he was going to risk it. “Tony does it all the time in his work. I’ve stopped trying to convince him otherwise.”

Peter collapsed completely on the desk, staring off into space at the floor. He was finally not moving as frantically, like he was trying to process what had just been told to him. Bruce let him think, not trusting himself not to burst out into more laughter at the thought of how ridiculous engineers are.

“I’m glad _I’m_ not an engineer,” Peter finally said. “Because pi does not equal three, not in any world.”

Bruce gave a half-laugh at that. Now that he was aware that there were multiple words and planets, he couldn’t help but wonder how true Peter’s statement was. Bruce wondered if Asgardian’s had pi or their version of pi and whether or not their version of engineers rounded it.

Probably not.

Asgard was a place of magic and wonder. They probably didn’t have to bother with mundane calculations or anything like that. Still, there was probably someplace somewhere where it wasn’t as important as it was here.

"Tony's done it tons of times," Bruce said and half expected Peter to cut him off or tell him that he didn't want to hear. He was so used to that with the other Avengers.

But Peter was still leaning across the desk, chin propped in his hands. He was looking just as invested in the story as Bruce was. In fact, he didn’t look like he was going to leave the room or interrupt or cut Bruce off or even ask him to speak “English.” It was . . . a much different change of pace. Bruce was almost caught off guard.

“Tony’s an engineer,” Bruce continued, not really sure what to say since he never thought he would make it this far in the first place. “I mean, he rounds things off all the time. If you work with him in a lab for any amount of time, it’s pretty obvious. Rounding is just what engineers do.” Bruce laughed, definitely more to himself this time. “It’s what they are best at.”

“I know that _now_!” Peter said.

He rolled to his feet and stood on top of the desk, stretching as a way to move his body after sitting still for way too long. He bounced on the balls of his feet and then shot a glob of web into the corner of the room.

Bruce could notice right away that the texture and consistency was different. Peter’s web was normally stretchy but also taut. It didn’t glob up the way this webbing did, tending to latch onto whatever surface with strands stronger than steel and pull away instead of sticking the clumping up the way it was now. It must be the webbing that Peter had said that he and Tony were working on. Interesting.

“Three as pi,” Peter muttered to himself. “Who thinks three is pi?” He shot another glob of web at another corner of the ceiling and watched as it stuck with a wet slap, held for a moment, and then pealed itself off, falling apart under its own weight. Peter looked at Bruce. “Do all engineers think pi is three?”

Bruce shrugged, pushing his chair back to give Peter more room to full-body fidget. “Generally.”

Peter jumped off the desk to grab the failed glob of web off the floor. He stretched it between his fingers and squinted at the strands as they stretched, trying to figure out what had gone wrong without having to take it back to the lab for a million tests. Obviously that didn’t work.

“You should help me work on this,” he finally said, tossing it onto Bruce’s desk with a wet splat. “I’ve sure you would be able to fix what’s going wrong _and_ you wouldn’t call pi and three equal.”

Bruce laughed at the joking suggestion. Tony was the one who created all of their gear, especially if they were an Avenger. Occasionally Bruce would have a hand with the coding or if Tony wanted to do some wack experiment with organic molecules or compounds, but more often than not, Bruce found himself was a drastic lack of scientific work if he didn't bring his own from home. Apparently he was only good for punching big monsters and smashing the bad guys.

Bruce laughed . . . until he realized that Peter wasn’t joking and was looking at him expecting an answer.

"Y-Yeah," he managed to say with only a little bit of awkwardness. "I could help."

"Good!" Peter said, jumping down off the desk and talking off his gloves. He pried open the compartment for the web canisters and emptied it out onto the desk, already rifling through the small pieces.

Bruce stepped up to his side to watch, studying all the small bits and already trying to formulate an acceptable reaction to get the type of web Peter was going for. He knew the basics but was more than eager to actually work on the device for himself.

"Goddamn engineers," Peter grumbled under his breath. "Pi is three? What is Mr. Stark even talking about? Every kid in my class knows better than that. _Goddamn_ engineers."

He talked as if he had Bruce's history of people like Tony, like he was some sort of wizened scientist so fed up with engineers and their antics that he would need a drink later in the day just to cope with them. It was hilarious, and Bruce was smiling to himself without meaning too.

Goddamn engineers indeed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> hey I'm on tumblr @manuscript-or where i will rant about things i want to write


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